"The Fastest Thing Alive"

A work of Sonic the Hedgehog "Fan-faction" by Glazius Falconar

A few technicalities...

This story and all new characters (specifically, Glazius Taladas Falconar, Professor Turalyon Raptarius, and the Mark V TDC) are copyright 1997 by the author, Glazius Falconar (aka Paul Arezina). I've read enough fanfic to know what title 17 (the copyright law) does and does not allow; you can’t change the text in any way or charge anyone money to read this without my expressed written permission. All situations and characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning cartoon series, as aired on ABC, are copyright SEGA, DiC, and/or Archie Comics, and are used (or at least referred to here) without permission. The concept of the World Wide Web is copyright H.G. Wells, in his "Men Like Gods". Read it sometime. If you think something in this should be changed, or you’d like to post it on your site, or you'd care to exercise your right to flame (though be warned, you will receive 1000 copies of your flame in return), or you just have a nifty e-mail program you haven't used yet, my email is at the end. The title is taken direct from the opening theme to the cartoon series, and is probably copyright SEGA or DiC.

I’d just finished my report on the evolution of life and the development of Mobian civilization and submitted it to the Academy. The Professor’s device had helped enormously; I was able to access a library of 50 years past, before that smog-choked metropolis appeared, and consult its records, and I was afforded the strange luxury of being able to check the facts by actually heading back in time. I was hoping the Academy wouldn’t think I’d used the Professor’s device as an alternative to deductive inference, and so I was submitting Mark’s logs as proof that I hadn’t used time travel to verify all the pieces of the Mobian puzzle. I recharged the compressed air supply which kept my air generator functional, replicated a quick dinner, and lay down for some rest. Time travel takes a lot out of you.

I was awakened by my vid-link blinking on. Mark’s chronometer showed that I’d been out for about 20 hours. Not surprising, considering I hadn’t slept in a few days. Professor Raptarius appeared on the screen.

"The Academy just sent me a copy of your paper, Glazius. I was a bit crestfallen to see that it wasn’t your best work. You realize that you covered in a few dozen pages a topic which was supposed to occupy your entire stay on Mobius Prime?"

"Yes, Professor, I realize that. But bear with me. That was just the first installment."

"I don’t follow you, Glazius."

"Before I left, you said that I should explain everything on this planet. Everything. That blue blur I showed you; Mark says it’s organic, mostly. How can anything move that fast without burning up from air-friction? And he was carrying something, or someone, in his arms. That, too, didn’t catch fire. And then there’s the matter of that mysterious wasteland our last flyby picked up and that strange robotic city. I’m sure they didn’t spontaneously evolve, Professor! This is no ordinary planet I’m on. What I’ve sent the Academy is a summary of the fairly mundane characteristics of Mobius Prime. Now, I’m going to try to explain the extraordinary ones."

The Professor looked to be taken aback by my statement, then smiled. "Just like me, Glazius, just like me. Going for the glory, eh? Well, best of luck to you. If you don’t submit anything else, the Academy will take this…" he gestured with my report, which he held in one hand, "as your final report. They were almost ready to do that, but I managed to convince them that more was coming."

"Thank you again, Professor. And you’ll be pleased to know that your TST is working perfectly."

"Yes, that is a plus. The Academy is ‘saving’ Mark’s logs for future reference."

Oh boy… that meant they’d end up in the Vault…. I had a chance to see it, once. Books and papers piled to the ceiling, digital recordings strewn about the floor. With luck, somebody might be able to find Mark’s logs after a few years of searching.

The Professor saw the emotions play across my face. "I know. I thought they’d be a bit more excited about it, too. You never can tell…."

I nodded in agreement.

"At any rate, Glazius, best of luck. I don’t want to keep you from your work. Safe journeys, Glazius."

"Safe journeys, Professor." I closed the connection.

What to do, what to do… I suddenly remembered that Mark still had a complete Mobian translation database on file. I decided to go check up on those guerillas. Maybe I could find out a bit of information on that strange blue blur. "Mark, can you get any readings on nearby sapients?"

"Working, Glazius… Affirmative. One sapient located within sensor range. Readings indicate that it is moving with an abnormally high velocity."

Better that I expected… I’d get to see the blur, whatever it was, one-on-one. "Mark, guide me to the sapient."

"Affirmative, Glazius. Instituting tracking subroutines…" A blue holographic arrow appeared, pointing me toward the blur’s location. Checking to ensure that my psychic cloak was in place, I took off into the air. I could never hope to overtake the blur, even with my innate speed, only to intercept its course. I alighted in a tree which it seemed the blur was heading toward. The blur streaked toward my position and then skidded to a halt. It was now or never… "Mark, shift my timestream negative to current time flow." I hoped those were the right words to use…

"Processing, Glazius…"

Suddenly, the world froze around me. Nothing stirred. I activated my air generator and began gliding through a forest frozen in time. I touched down as close to the blur’s last location as I could. Looking around, I saw… a hedgehog? A blue hedgehog, to be precise, albeit sapient. He looked… different… from the hedgehog sapient precursors I’d seen in Mobius’s past… Of course! This hedgehog seemed to have less than a dozen spines; his precursors had sported literally hundreds of them. And the strange color… blue was a most unusual hue for mammalian sapients, though several Avis Prime clans bore blue plumage. "Mark, analyze hedgehog. Determine method of pigmentation."

"Analyzing, Glazius. Pigmentation appears to be… metallic… in origin."

"Please elaborate, Mark."

"Unable to comply with request, Glazius. Bio-sample required for further identification."

"Okay, Mark. Place whatever you need to in sync with my timestream, and I’ll take a sample."

"Negative, Glazius. Only entire organisms or objects can be placed in sync with a timestream. Placing hedgehog in sync with current timestream involves…"

"I know, Mark, a huge potential for violating the Prime Law." I thought for a minute. Perhaps this hedgehog had simply proofed himself against burnup with some chemical. "Mark, is that blue pigment some kind of coating?"

"Scanning… Negative, Glazius. Pigment appears to be part of hedgehog’s natural organic structure."

This was too weird. A hedgehog with metal naturally integrated into his body. How could such a thing happen? I knew that the hemoglobin in my body looked red because it had captured an iron ion, and that plants have chlorophyll which looks green because of the presence of magnesium… but blue? The only blue ions I knew of were copper and cobalt. Hedgehog quills are constantly growing, so he’d have to find a source of metal to keep them blue… and those two metals are fairly toxic to organic systems, even in small doses. Furthermore, he probably hadn’t been born with them. The intensity of the hue suggested a very high concentration of whatever ion made his quills blue. In amniotic fluid, some of those ions would have to diffuse out of his quills, into the fluid, and maybe into his mother’s body. Again, the toxicity would be too great for any organic being to handle. Unless there was some internal mechanism…. However, my scans of the hedgehog’s precursors had revealed no excessive chelating agents in their bloodstreams… "Mark, scan hedgehog for presence of natural or unnatural chelating agents."

"Scanning, Glazius… concentration of chelating agents in hedgehog’s bloodstream matches his precursors’ exactly."

It wasn’t that, then… think, Glazius, think! This hedgehog had metal integrated into his body, but there was no internal route for it to get there. He couldn’t just be pulling it out of the air… or could he? Maybe if…

"Mark, access earlier map of Mobius Prime. Display probable locations of deposits of copper and cobalt."

"Displaying map, Glazius…"

Hmm… the copper deposits on this planet were fairly concentrated, but the cobalt… there was no cobalt? There should at least be trace amounts… "Mark, amplify display of probable cobalt deposits."

"Amplifying, Glazius…"

What in the… the whole continent was covered with minute deposits of cobalt? Normally, metals tend to aggregate while a planet is developing, forming discrete deposits of metal, or metal ore. Hmm… since cobalt was magnetic… the planet must have been bombarded with some sort of energy while it was forming, causing cobalt atoms or aggregates of cobalt atoms to repel each other. This, in turn, would lead to the most uniform distribution possible… which explained Mark’s readings. The planet was covered with deposits of cobalt, each only a few atoms deep. Not enough of a concentration to cause serious harm to organics, and not enough bond strength… Yes! I had the answer.

The hedgehog’s quill proteins were probably inordinately rich in negatively charged amino acids, which were stabilized in the aqueous cell medium by hydrogen ions. In the air, however… the negative charge might be great enough to ionize the cobalt present all over Mobius Prime and draw ions into the hedgehog’s quills. There were probably cobalt-specific receptors in the quill protein structure, and the quills would stick to each other because of the interaction between negatively charged quill proteins and positively charged cobalt ions. That odd coloration and the apparently reduced quill count made sense now. Perhaps he’s got other metals in there, too… "Mark, access map of Mobius Prime. Search for metal deposit patterns similar to that of cobalt and limit list displayed to ions which are colorless when organically complexed."

"Performing search, Glazius… processing restrictions… done. Only metals fitting search criteria are nickel and titanium."

Hmm… he’s probably got receptors for those, as well. But what would be the use of having metal ions imbedded in quills? Perhaps a bit of added hardness… perhaps… but that still didn’t explain how he was able to run so fast. I’d have to observe him "in action", as it were. I took off, flew to the top of the tree again, and prepared to re-enter my native timestream. "Mark, save previous TST request. Whenever I ask you to stop time, carry it out."

"Request for retrograde translation saved under alias ‘stop time’."

"Excellent, Mark. Place me back in sync with my native timestream."

"Activating concurrence module, Glazius."

I felt a brief jerk, and the world re-started. The hedgehog looked around, as if to get his bearings, nodded, and began… spinning his legs? That sort of thing shouldn’t be possible with most mammalian joints, or avian ones, either. A sonic boom jolted me from my thoughts; the hedgehog was off and running.

"Mark, stop time and guide me to the hedgehog’s location."

"Processing request, Glazius…"

The world stopped again. A blue arrow appeared, and I activated my air generator and took off, following Mark’s directions. I located the hedgehog’s coordinates and touched down in the nearest clear space I could find. I made my way gingerly through a tangle of unyielding branches and saw the hedgehog, running through some brush. As I slowly made my way closer, I saw… no, it couldn’t be… his legs were still spinning? "Mark, is the TST malfunctioning?"

"Running internal diagnostics… Negative, Glazius. TST is functioning perfectly."

"Then time is stopped?"

"Your timestream is being translated backwards at the normal rate of time flow, Glazius. For all intents and purposes, time has stopped."

"Mark, scan hedgehog, emphasis on his legs."

"Scanning, Glazius… performing internal diagnostic…"

"Internal diagnostic? Why, Mark?"

"Scan results are logically impossible. Internal diagnostic complete. No errors detected. Beginning comprehensive diagnostic…"

"Stop diagnostic, Mark. What were the scan results?"

"Diagnostic ceased, Glazius. Scan results indicated that spacetime was being locally bent by some force, creating…"

"A warp bubble, Mark?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. Said warp bubble, of great enough magnitude to bend light, creates the illusion of hedgehog’s feet existing at all points around its perimeter. Planet’s degree of technological sophistication is several generations before warp drive should be postulated, let alone developed. Thus, scan results are logically impossible. Performing comprehensive diagnostic…"

"Stop diagnostic, Mark. You can’t be malfunctioning already; it’s only been a week."

Mark didn’t respond. A few seconds later…

"Agreed, Glazius. Comprehensive diagnostic reveals no damage to any internal circuitry. Most peculiar."

"Peculiar is right, Mark. Scan hedgehog’s shoes for evidence of alien technology."

"Scan already performed, Glazius. No alien technology detected. Shoes are constructed of an organic polymer, integrated with nickel and minute amounts of iron."

Hmm… similar in structure to the hedgehog’s quills… but what did that tell me? Not much, unless… no, it couldn’t be possible… but then again, this was no ordinary planet. "Mark, scan hedgehog for energy signatures."

"Scanning, Glazius… hedgehog appears to be generating a localized spacetime distortion around his body…"

"You mean he’s encased himself in a warp bubble?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. Furthermore, energy of unknown type detected flowing through hedgehog’s quills."

This was impossible! No, I corrected myself. This was merely improbable. There’s a difference. The hedgehog was a fully functional organic warp drive! Avis scientists had been working on a warp drive, but our space-folding technology rendered such a drive obsolete. They hadn’t even developed a prototype; the principles underlying warp drive involve differentially expanding and contracting spacetime. To do that, some sort of antigravity is required, and as all sane beings know, the amount of energy needed to generate antigravity is obscenely huge. Or rather, generating antigravity waves requires a huge amount of conventional energy… but that strange energy signature certainly wasn’t conventional.

The hedgehog apparently had antigrav-capable energy flowing through his quills, using their strange organometallic structure as a natural power conduit. I noticed that the blue seemed to extend down his legs; the energy was probably able to flow into his shoes as well. They radiated enough of the antigrav energy to form a warp bubble, although it was impossible for me to tell if they were designed with that purpose in mind. Probably not. As for that warp bubble around his body… hmmm… his quills were probably just as capable of radiating that strange energy as his shoes were. Of course, the radiation would have to be meticulously controlled to achieve any sort of precision movement… and a sapient brain couldn’t handle that much information… or could it?

The answer came in a flash of insight. It seemed a bit ironic, though. The hedgehog didn’t know he was warping spacetime! He probably thought he was born with some sort of super speed. In reality, he wasn’t moving at all. He was locally at rest in the pocket of spacetime in the warp bubble, which was translating over the landscape. It expanded spacetime behind it and contracted spacetime ahead of it, creating what appeared to be a supersonic hedgehog. But maneuvering through dense forest would require… now I knew what that warp bubble around his shoes was for. He used it as a kind of energy reserve, drawing some from it when he needed to make sudden stops and turns. And the mechanism for all of this had to be an unconscious one; no sapient brain could process the massive amount of information needed to maneuver at that incredible speed. But the unconscious… that’s a different story. I knew that much from my early physiology classes. In the air, there are hundreds of factors to consider; updrafts and downdrafts, eddies created around rock formations, bits of the slipstream and jet stream filtering downward, differential densities of air… and yet I could keep my balance and fly in any direction almost thoughtlessly. My conscious mind wasn’t processing any of the information needed, but my unconscious mind was perfectly in tune with even the most minute of atmospheric conditions. As the hedgehog’s unconscious was probably perfectly in tune with the landscape and his own warp capabilities. He’d just want to speed somewhere, and he’d generate the two warp bubbles and take off, zooming across the landscape with nary a thought. It all seemed so… simple.

I prepared to take off to my base in the treetops when I realized something. All this about his unconscious and the natural generation of a warp field was only a theory. A mighty poor scientist I’d be if I didn’t gather some evidence. And the only way to do that was to observe the hedgehog doing what he did best. I took off and began micro-fluttering a few dozen wingspans up. "Mark, re-sync me with native timestream and track hedgehog. When he stops moving again, stop time, and restart it once I reach his location."

"Restart it, Glazius?"

"You know what I mean, Mark: re-sync me with my native timestream."

"Creating new alias… processing earlier request…"

Time began flowing again. The hedgehog tore effortlessly through the brush; the warp bubble was probably shoving it aside before he even reached it. I began following Mark’s blue arrow, keeping up with the hedgehog as best I could. Which wasn’t saying much. I lost sight of him within a few minutes, but kept following Mark’s arrow. Suddenly, the world stopped. Apparently, the hedgehog had decided to take a break again. "Mark, display location of hedgehog on map of planet Mobius Prime."

"Displaying, Glazius…"

Hmmm… his coordinates looked familiar… "Mark, overlay probable locations of sapient habitation."

"Displaying requested overlay…"

As I thought. The hedgehog had returned to his base. It would be interesting to see some of the other guerillas… but would it be worth risking detection? What the heck… Mark will stop time if I get in too deep, right? I quickly saw through my own feeble attempt at self-reassurance. But I had to see the guerillas in action if I had any hope of understanding this war. Taking a deep breath and assuring myself of the integrity of my psychic cloak, I flew toward the hedgehog’s location. I arrived to find... a tangle of branches? Well, of course, I told myself. Mark had detected several flying robots, probably agents of whatever lived in that pollution-choked metropolis, so it would be important that the base be shielded from the air. But how to get through them without moving any and possibly revealing the base’s location…

One of Professor Raptarius’s lectures had been on the nature of matter. Matter was mostly empty space, he told us, but we were prevented from coming in sync with it because of the extremely low probability of our wavefunction and its wavefunction exactly coinciding. The wavefunctions constantly varied, as a result of the Uncertainty Principle, so there would be little chance that a wavefunction which was somehow held constant could penetrate another piece of matter. However, if both were held constant… "Mark, can you modulate our wavefunctions?"

"Capacity does exist, Glazius. However, wavefunction modulation is considered largely useless."

"Not in this case, Mark, not in this case. Place my wavefunction exactly in sync with one of those tree limbs." After all, time was stopped, so the tree’s wavefunction should be more or less static.

"Complying, Glazius…"

I felt a bit of nausea, but it was probably psychosomatic in nature. I swept my left wing gingerly through the air, aiming for the tree limb Mark had synced me with. It came close and… I felt an eerie tingling sensation as it passed cleanly through the limb. Excellent! "Mark, I’m going to dive through those tree limbs. Modulate our wavefunctions so they won’t interfere with any of the limbs on the way down."

"Complying, Glazius…"

That same feeling of nausea again. I prayed Mark had done its job correctly, folded my wings, and dropped like a stone, aiming for the cover of tree limbs. They loomed larger, and I shut my eyes, anticipating impact… but it never came. I opened my eyes to see the ground rushing up at me. Alarmed, I pulled up and narrowly avoided a collision. I had indeed passed right through the tree limbs. Hmmm… that could come in useful later… "Mark, save request for wavefunction modulation, and do it whenever I tell you I want to pass through something."

"Creating alias… Be advised that said modulation is only possible under retrograde timestream translation."

"Understood, Mark…" Now to find the hedgehog. I walked around the guerilla base. It looked to be a peaceful enough place, composed largely of rather rustic-looking huts, and a single larger building which appeared to serve as a meeting hall. Well, what did I expect, another metropolis? Heavy equipment isn’t exactly very portable, and even moderate amounts of emissions would be rather difficult to keep hidden. Mark’s arrow guided me towards a large pile of hay near the outskirts of the base. From the looks of things, it appeared that the hedgehog had launched himself into the hay rather forcefully. I mentally traced his "flight path", guided by the miniature explosion of hay, and found its source to be a hollowed-out tree root. The root took a number of twists and turns before it disappeared into the hillside, probably coming out in a hollow tree somewhere aboveground. A very effective means of camouflage; whoever designed this base obviously knew what they were doing. I took off again, so as not to be on the ground when I reached the hedgehog’s coordinates and Mark re-synced me with the timestream. As I passed over the pile of hay, the world started moving again.

The hedgehog pulled himself out of the pile of hay, spat a few strands of it from his mouth, and began picking a few more out of his organometallic quills. I watched him with a bit of amusement until Mark trilled a warning.

"Incoming lifeform, Glazius."

"I’m in the air, Mark. Whatever it is will pass right under me."

"Negative, Glazius. Said lifeform is flying."

That was strange. I hadn’t seen any flying insects in this time period; pollution is much more toxic to them because of their small size and direct contact with the air. I hadn’t seen many birds, either; that somehow disappointed me. Remembering the importance of avoiding physical contact, I flew a few wingspans aside from the heading Mark indicated for the lifeform. I prepared to have a look at it as it went by.

A stranger beast I’ve never seen. Its wings buzzed noisily, like an insect’s, but it had a bird’s beak, legs, and feathers. It seemed to have a cylinder of some strange organic material tied to the back of its body; I vaguely remembered some story about Terran birds called "carrier pigeons", and assumed this beast served a similar function. Very useful for clandestine communication; an adversary used to dealing with speed-of-light electronic communications probably wouldn’t think twice about a strange creature flitting through the forest. Whoever came up with the idea of using it was truly a strategic genius, and something told me that the hidden entrance was invented by the same sapient. I hoped I’d get a chance to see the sapient someday; that bent for using common things for uncommon purposes reminded me a bit of Professor Raptarius…

The hedgehog had seen the beast, too. He took off for the center of town. I followed him, not knowing quite what to expect.

I arrived to find the beast perched on the arm of a sapient, who was reading a piece of paper which I assumed had been in the cylinder on the beast’s back. A cursory glance enabled me to discern her sex, but not much else; the beast was blocking my view of her face. She lifted her arm into the air and the beast took off, enabling me to get a good look at her face and her species… sort of. Her face and tail, along with her general body structure, indicated that she was a ground squirrel of some sort, but the cast of her eyes and her muzzle fur were distinctly vulpine. Perhaps a crossbreed; such things were not unknown. The hedgehog spoke.

"So what did Uncle Chuck have to say, Sal?"

"It’s not good, Sonic."

"Sonic"… it seemed appropriate. Wait a minute, how could I understand this? "Mark?"

"Translation program has been activated, Glazius."

"Good work, Mark." I continued listening to the conversation.

"One of Robotnik’s patrols captured a dragon. She’s being held in a base near the Great Unknown."

A dragon? From what I’d heard of dragons, they were mythical creatures, told of in Terran folktales. Nothing as huge as they were could possibly fly, and their fiery breath was impossible from an organic standpoint. It was probably just a large lizard-like creature. As for the Great Unknown, it was probably their name for that wasteland the last Avis flyby picked up. And "Robotnik"…

"He’s sending a convoy to transport her to Robotropolis at… 1200 hours!"

That name sounded like it belonged with that polluted, metallic city. He’d probably bastardized the name from Mobotropolis after he took over. The hedgehog spoke again.

"Is there a problem, Sal?"

"Sonic, it’s 1100 hours now! We have to get there, and fast!"

"Like I said, is there a problem, Sal? I’ll be there in a Sonic second!" He began forming the warp bubble around his legs.

"Sonic, it’s not that easy. Robotnik has a battalion of SWATbots guarding the fortress, and an automated defense grid guarding the door to the dragon’s holding cell. You’ll need my help, and Nicole’s as well."

The hedgehog stopped charging the warp bubble. "SWATbots"… probably some sort of military robots that this "Robotnik" had programmed. But who was Nicole?

"No prob, Sal. Grab on!" The squirrel (for lack of a better term) leapt into the hedgehog’s arms and flung her arms around his neck. The hedgehog began forming the warp bubble… but where was this mysterious Nicole?

"Outta here!" With that, the hedgehog took off, leaving a sonic boom and a cloud of dust in his wake.

"Mark, track hedgehog. When he stops, stop time."

"Affirmative, Glazius."

Mark’s holographic arrow appeared again, and I began winging my way after the hedgehog, barely managing to fit through the small hole in the foliage he had run through. The hedgehog had accelerated from rest to the speed of sound in a matter of seconds, and I noticed a distinct lack of vital fluids along his path. If he were physically generating that magnitude of acceleration, he wouldn’t feel its effects, but the squirrel in his arms certainly would. Being subjected to a few dozen times the acceleration of gravity would crush an organic being instantly. Since the squirrel obviously wasn’t damaged in any way, the hedgehog couldn’t be accelerating physically, and had to be generating a warp bubble. Inside the bubble, he and the squirrel would be locally at rest and experience no acceleration. One point in favor of my theory. But how to explain the dust cloud? Well, since he did leave a slight vacuum behind him, the air would rush in, creating the illusion that he’d left a strong wind behind him. A powerful enough vacuum, and air might rush in with enough friction to set the ground on fire. Similarly, he would have to form a slight vacuum to stop, and would probably seem to be kicking up a cloud of dust upon arrival.

I suddenly began to feel a bit short of breath. Looking around, I saw that the world was frozen in time. I activated my air generator and took a deep breath. Mark had probably placed a bit of the surrounding area in retrograde translation; enough to keep me flying, but not enough to let me breathe normally. I resumed my flight toward the hedgehog’s location. As I flew, I noted an unusually marked boundary near the horizon. The forest seemed to stop abruptly and be replaced with the wasteland which the sapients here knew as "the Great Unknown". There should be at least some grass of some sort, or some smaller shrubs, so that the forest would gradually recede and be replaced with wasteland. The abrupt break was unusual; something else to try and explain. I sighed… and, in looking down, caught sight of a metallic structure, surrounded by robots of some sort, in the middle of a clearing. This must be the base. Mark’s arrow indicated that the hedgehog (and, presumably, the squirrel) had stopped a few wingspans away from the edge of the forest. I checked my psychic cloak (which should protect against those robots’ sensors) and touched down atop a tree near the hedgehog’s position. "Mark, restart time."

"Activating concurrence module, Glazius…"

The hedgehog and squirrel had stopped together. The squirrel hadn’t been flung from the hedgehog’s arms when he stopped; another point in favor of my theory that he warped spacetime. The hedgehog was holding what I guessed to be binoculars up to his eyes. He slowly lowered them.

"Man, Sal, you weren’t kidding. That place is crawling with SWATbots!"

"I think I can take care of that, Sonic." She removed something from her boot, flipped it open and spoke into it.

"Nicole, activate program Diversion 1, parameters Gamma 3 Beta."

"Activating, Sally…"

Hmmm… the "Nicole" she had been referring to was a hand-held computer, similar to Mark. The voice synthesizer could use a bit of work, but it was a remarkably advanced piece of technology. I wondered how it worked… something else to explain. Would this planet never stop throwing enigmas at me? How did the Academy expect me to…

I was jolted from my reverie by the sound of robotic footsteps, marching in near-perfect unison. They seemed to be headed in one particular direction… "Mark, calculate heading of robotic forces."

"Calculating, Glazius… robots seem to be headed towards the city known as ‘Robotropolis’."

Hmmm… how had she done that? The hedgehog apparently had similar thoughts.

"What just happened, Sal?"

"Nicole, replay the signal you broadcast to the SWATbots."

A nasal voice came from the computer. "Attention all SWATbots. Priority one! Repeat, priority one! The Freedom Fighters have somehow managed to disable the Robotropolis defense systems. We are under attack! Repeat, we are under attack!"

"Way past, Nicole! That sounded just like ol’ Snidely!"

"You got it, my main hedgehog. Transmission was assembled from outgoing Robotropolis radio signals over past several weeks."

"Say what?" said the hedgehog, apparently confused by the technical language.

"Sorry, my main hedgehog. I put it together from recordings of Snively’s voice."

That was certainly a strange way for a computer to talk. "My main hedgehog"… what kind of interface would generate that? And this "Snively"… he was probably one of Robotnik’s lieutenants. But what species? It was impossible to tell.

The squirrel spoke. "Sonic, we have to get moving! That convoy will be here in half an hour!"

"You mean Nicole didn’t send them back to Buttnikland?"

An… interesting modification of Robotnik’s name.

"Sorry, my main hedgehog. I can only broadcast so far…" The squirrel closed up the computer and placed it in her boot, cutting off the conversation. She and the hedgehog headed for the entrance to the base. I glided down from my perch and followed them.

I found myself gagging as I followed the duo through the base. Whoever designed it obviously had no sense of form following function; a prison, or even a building with a holding cell, should be labyrinthine in nature, with perhaps a few floors to further confound rescue efforts. But I could see the "dragon", or at least her holding cell, quite clearly from the entrance. This Robotnik was either mentally unbalanced or supremely overconfident; I had a feeling it was a bit of both. The duo seemed to stop for some reason a few wingspans short of the cell… the defense grid, obviously. I lifted my digital binoculars, set them to wide-spectrum mode, and had a look. Hmmm… relatively simple, a grid of laser sensors, moving in a chaotic fashion. No obstacle to me, since they were all a feather’s length above the ground, but to these non-flying sapients…

"Yo, Sal, what’s the holdup?"

"Nicole, display holographic overlay." The computer was apparently back in her hand.

"Displaying, Sally…"

Funny, I couldn’t see anything… I lowered my binoculars and found that Nicole was mapping out the lasers’ paths with some sort of holographic projection. Incredible range and resolution for such a primitive computer… how did it manage?

"Sonic, if we break any of those laser beams, the defense grid will be activated, and we’ll be right in the middle of it!"

The hedgehog appeared to be thinking for a minute, and then he snapped his fingers. "Nicole, front and center!"

"What up, my main hedgehog?"

A really weird interface…

"Any pattern in those laser thingies?"

"Laser generation appears to be random in nature. No pattern detected."

"Man, Sal, how are we gonna get through those things?"

"I don’t know, Sonic, but we don’t have much time to find a way. The convoy will be here in 15 minutes!"

The hedgehog snapped his fingers again. "The antigrav!"

Antigrav? I didn’t see the bulky machinery necessary for an anti-graviton generator. The hedgehog picked up the squirrel, pressed the sides of his shoes, and… walked up the wall and onto the ceiling? "Mark, scan hedgehog’s shoes for presence of adhesive substances."

"None detected, Glazius. However, hedgehog’s shoes are radiating energy with signature matching…"

"The strange breed flowing through his quills. Right, Mark?"

"Affirmative, Glazius."

Hmmm… apparently, the shoes had been designed to conduct energy away from the hedgehog’s body. Only now, instead of forming a warp bubble, they were using the energy in its pure antigravity form. Amazing! I took a quick flight across the laser grid and touched down on the other side just as the hedgehog came down the wall.

"Now what, Sal?"

"Nicole, unlock the cell."

"Unlocking, Sally… Lock is a level 10 scrambled mechanism. Estimated time of unlocking: 25 minutes."

"Abort unlocking procedure, Nicole."

"Aborting, Sally…"

"Sonic, do you think you can cut through that lock?"

"Anything to take a dragon out of Buttnik’s ugly mitts, Sal."

I was wondering what kind of cutting tools were in the hedgehog’s backpack when he… turned into a spinning saw blade and flung himself at the lock? "Mark, stop time!"

"Processing, Glazius…"

Time froze again, and I saw the hedgehog curled up into a ball, organometallic quills thrust outward. "Mark, analyze hedgehog for energy signatures."

"Analyzing, Glazius… hedgehog appears to be channeling unknown energy through a single organometallic quill, located at the apex of his quill structure."

Astounding… he not only had an unconscious mechanism for linear movement, but also one for angular movement. I could see why he had titanium integrated into his quills; a spin like that would snap off anything which wasn’t sufficiently strong when it came into contact with any surface. He would create the warp bubble, begin spinning, and target himself at whatever he wanted to shred. His unconscious would take care of the rest; I doubted that his conscious mind could keep track of "up" and "down" when he was spinning (or at least, appeared to be spinning) that fast. "Mark, restart time."

"Activating concurrence module, Glazius…"

The hedgehog’s cobalt-titanium alloy quills sliced through the lock with relative ease. The door to the cell swung slowly open, and the hedgehog stopped spinning. He brushed a bit of debris out of his quills, and followed the squirrel into the holding cell. I followed close behind.

By the Almighty… the cell really did contain a dragon, straight out of a Terran "fairy tale". Huge body, leathery wings, long tail, horned head; it was a near-perfect likeness. Shackles were draped all over its body; apparently, it was rather powerful, and Robotnik, whoever he was, wasn’t taking any chances.

"Don’t worry. I’ll have you out in a Sonic second!" The hedgehog prepared to buzzsaw through the shackles. The dragon shook its head (its muzzle was shackled shut), then swung its body so the shackles scraped against the cell wall. Huge sparks flew at the impact.

"Nicole, scan those shackles."

"Scanning, Sally… Several hundred kilowatts of electricity are flowing through the shackles. It appears that they are electromagnetically locked; if the connecting wires are broken, the shackles will simply unlock."

"Whoa, thanks for the warning! A few seconds later and I would have been Sonic stir-fry. Can Nicole get those chains off, Sal?"

"I don’t think so, Sonic. The only way to remove them is to break them… Nicole, laser!"

A small phased energy beam shot from the top of the computer, and impacted with one section of the shackles. It glowed red briefly, and began sagging.

"Again, Nicole!"

The energy beam shot out again, and the shackles gave way. All the clamps were loosened, and the dragon was free.

"You’re Freedom Fighters, aren’t you? Thank you for your..."

The hedgehog interrupted. "Hey, that’s what we’re here for. But we’ve gotta get out of here!"

"Right, Sonic. The convoy will be here any minute!" The squirrel turned to the dragon. "Can you fly us out of here?"

Fly? Something that big could fly?

"I don’t think I could carry you very far... those shackles took a lot out of me..."

"Just get us across the grid, and let the hedgehog take care of the rest." The hedgehog sounded confident in his abilities, but I was more than a little worried. If they were captured…

The two Freedom Fighters climbed on the dragon’s back. She launched herself into the air, glided across the grid, but quickly collapsed on the other side. "No good. I might be able to fly myself back to Dragons’ Nest, to recuperate, but passengers are out of the question."

"Dragons’ Nest"? Probably the mating grounds or some such…

Suddenly, a platoon of robots burst in. It seemed that the convoy had arrived. They began droning, "Apprehend Freedom Fighters, Priority One, by order of Robotnik!" and firing what looked to be arm-mounted lasers. My heart fell. The hedgehog couldn’t escape, even with his innate speed, and the dragon was surely doomed. It looked hopeless.

"Sal, slap me a Power Ring!"

A what?

The squirrel opened the hedgehog’s backpack, fished out a gold-colored ring, and handed it to the hedgehog. He lifted it high in the air. "Thanks, Sal. Juice time, Warp 8!"

If only he knew how true those words were… but what good would a piece of jewelry do? I got my answer when the ring began glowing, faintly at first, then brighter and brighter. The hedgehog was surrounded with the same glow… "Mark, analyze energy surrounding hedgehog."

"Energy signature matches energy signature in hedgehog’s quills from earlier scan."

Meaning that the hedgehog was over-charging his natural warp capabilities… I braced myself.

It was a prudent move. The hedgehog took off, easily moving twice as fast as he appeared to be before. He slammed into robots, created miniature vortexes by running in circles, buzz-sawed with wild abandon, and generally created havoc. When the cloud of debris cleared, not a robot was left in one piece, let alone standing. The hedgehog stood, took a deep breath, and the ring faded away…

"Am I way past cool, or am I way past cool?"

The squirrel just rolled her eyes.

The dragon, however, seemed impressed. "Thank you... thank you both... but I really must be going. I’ll tell the others about you..." With that, she took off, smashing a hole through the glass ceiling.

"Sonic, we’d better get back to Knothole."

A strange name for a base…

"Robotnik will probably have reinforcements here any minute."

"Right, Sal. Grab on."

She leapt into his arms again.

"Outta here!" With that, he took off, leaving a cloud of robotic parts and debris in his wake. I figured it was time to head back home, but not before Mark scanned all the robots the hedgehog had destroyed.

As I flew homeward, questions popped into my head. How exactly did those robots work? It would take a while for Mark to piece together the schematics from those destroyed "SWATbots", I thought they were called. I’d also noticed a few other pieces among the wreckage, like fan blades, which seemed to come from flying units. How exactly were they put together? For those questions, I already had all the data needed for an answer. It was only a matter of time before Mark finished its compilation.

Other questions popped into my head, ones that couldn’t be answered so easily. What was that ring? Some sort of energy container, that much I knew. But how was it constructed? And the hedgehog talked about it like it was one of many. What could produce such things? For that matter, how did the hedgehog end up with space-warping capability in the first place? And who designed those shoes for him?

Speaking of which, who designed that "Nicole"? It seemed to be a rather primitive computer, but its capabilities rivaled Mark’s in some areas. And how could that dragon fly? Could she breathe fire? How did that wasteland form? How did… I angrily shoved them to the back of my head. I had answered one question, but, in doing so, I had managed to find a few dozen problems to solve. This was not going to be an enjoyable stay…

It’s not even close to being the end.

Questions? E-mail me at [email protected].